India on Friday welcomed Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s statement that the two countries must dance together and not fight each other, saying it was willing to work with Beijing to develop bilateral ties based on commonalities while dealing with differences on the basis of mutual respect and sensitivities for each other’s interest, concerns and aspirations.
At a media briefing, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, “As two major countries and large economies, relations between India and China are not just important bilaterally but also have regional and global significance.”
He recalled that during their meeting at Xiamen in China in September last year, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed that sound development of relations between India and China was a factor of stability amid global uncertainties and that the two countries should not allow their differences to become disputes.
Since then, the two countries had maintained regular exchanges at all levels which had helped in strengthening bilateral communication, the spokesperson added.
Asked if the two countries were planning to resume joint defence exercises and meetings of various bilateral mechanisms, he said discussions in this regard were on, especially for an early meeting of the panel for sharing hydrological data.
The spokesperson was evasive when asked if the government had issued instructions to senior officials to skip events organised by the Tibetan government-in-exile so as not to annoy China.
The government, he said, had already issued a clarification on the issue that Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama was a revered religious leader deeply respected by the people of India.